The development of Pilot Production Environments based on Digital Twins and Virtual Dashboards

Developing or adjusting production environments requires joint decision-making by stakeholders from many disciplines at different levels of aggregation, because of the significant, unpredictable, and risky investments involved. Especially, the relations between the design of the product (portfolio) and the environments in which they are produced are intricate. Pilot production environments offer a platform to develop, test, improve, and upscale (parts of) a production environment. In this, the interactions between (changes in) product design and anticipated or envisaged production environments can be assessed. Pilot production environments consist of physical and virtual components that are integrated, based on digital twin concepts. These concepts synthesise sensoring/measurement (in situ and ex situ) with the modelling and simulation of existing and evolving resources/processes at operational, tactical, and strategic levels. The digital twin evolves with the development cycle through the entire value chain, providing structure while giving meaningful access to tools, methods, and captured data. So-called Virtual Dashboards supplement the pilot plant to provide an insightful basis for decision-making for all the perspectives and stakeholders involved. They build on the realm of information, models, scenarios, simulations, tools, and techniques available, allowing stakeholders to address specific subjects or aspects of a production environment. Approaches to making virtual dashboards instrumental range from smart information sets, via simulations, infographics, 3D models, and visualisations to full-blown virtual reality or augmented reality applications.